On the Linguistic Legitimacy of the so-called "Position" Rule in the Past Participle Agreement in French

De la légitimité linguistique de la règle dite "de position" dans l'accord du participe passé français

Fabrice Marsac (1)

1 Université d'Opole (UO), Pologne

This study deals with the past participle used with the auxiliary "(to) have" in French. From a linguistic point of view, we do not agree with the relevance and effectiveness of the so-called "position rule". To this end, we hypothesize that traditional French grammar, because of its exclusively morphological approach (on this point), has not assigned the correct grammatical category to this past participle in speech. So will we reconsider, through Ockham's Razor, the past participle used with an auxiliary (whatever auxiliary) in order to find new perspectives about categorization and agreement.

Mots clés: the so-called "position" rule; auxiliary past participle (through the verb "have"); (non-)agreement; grammatical category; categorical transfer; linguistic legitimacy; Ockham's razor; new perspectives

Mots clés: nouvelles perspectives; Rasoir d'Ockham; légitimité linguistique; re-catégorisation; transfert catégoriel; catégorie grammaticale; (non-)accord; règle dite "de position"; participe passé auxilié (par "avoir")

Domaines: Linguistique

Fabrice Marsac. De la légitimité linguistique de la règle dite "de position" dans l'accord du participe passé français. Orbis Linguarum, 2014, n° 41, p. 97-108. ⟨halshs-02288202⟩